Apple Television set could offer ad-skipping functionality

Apple is said to be trying to get TV companies to agree to let customers skip adverts, for a price

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Apple wants to offer a television service that lets people skip adverts.

The company is proposing a system by which it pays media companies when viewers skip commercials, according to the Wall Street Journal's Jessica Lessin.

Apple's premium television service would be offered to customers at a price.

According to the report, broadcasters have been resistant to similar offerings and Apple has already faced issues from cable and satellite companies who have refused to authenticate the new HBO Go app that Apple recently pushed out on the Apple TV in America, notes Apple Insider.

Of course fast-forwarding through adverts is hardly a new thing. In fact, it was a lot easier to skip through adverts on old video recorders than it is on new DVRs and on OnDemand websites.

Lessin notes that last year Apple was granted a patent that describes technology that could swap in a different stream of video during a commercial break.

We wrote about that Apple television related patent at the time: The patent described a way for “seamless switching between radio and local media” and lets users switch between broadcast content and locally stored media when content that doesn’t interest them is playing. Surprisingly, commercials are listed as one of these types of content that can be replaced by stored media.

Using the patented technology and other data, the device would be able to predict whether an “upcoming broadcast segment or media item is not of interest to the user” and automatically switch to on-device content.

One of the main problems for companies like Apple attempting to cometo an agreement with media companies is that TV providers are against giving technology companies control over the television's user interface, Bloomberg reported last year. “It’s a tough problem because the cable companies and media companies are not very enthusiastic about the prospect of Apple creating a better user interface,” Walter Price, an investor with RCM Capital Management, told Bloomberg.

Apple is said to be working on an advanced set-top-box with an iOS-like interface and cloud-based DVR functionality that would erase the distinction between live and on-demand TV. It is widely believed that Apple will launch a television, referred to as iTV in some circles, in an attempt to take over the TV market as it has the MP3 player, smartphone and tablet markets.